Health Evaluatehttp://healthevaluate.com
Sun, 13 May 2018 07:47:11 +0000en-UShourly1http://healthevaluate.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Favicon.pngHealth Evaluatehttp://healthevaluate.com
3232Top 5 Plant-Based Protein Powdershttp://healthevaluate.com/85-2/
Sun, 13 May 2018 07:41:13 +0000http://healthevaluate.com/?p=85Choosing a plant-based protein powder doesn’t have to be difficult. When you’re looking for a vegan protein powder option, you want one that will help support your nutrition and exercise goals, improve your energy level, help your muscles recover quickly after exertion, and perhaps lose fat and gain lean muscle mass. Consider these top six plant-based vegan protein powder choices, and read on to learn more about the pros and cons of each.

One thing to watch for when choosing a vegan protein is stevia. Stevia is made from the Stevia rebaudiana, or sweetleaf, plant that grows in South America. Although the plant is naturally low in calories and doesn’t raise blood sugar levels to the degree that some other sweeteners do, it does have some known side effects, including bloating, decreased appetite, nausea, and stomach irritation, especially when stevia is used in a highly refined form. When possible, look for protein powders that don’t include

Elevate’s plant-based protein powder is made of hemp, pea, and sweet potato proteins. Its low-calorie hint of sweetness comes from monk fruit rather than stevia. To be blunt, it’s the best-tasting plant-based vegan protein on the market. Combine this with its other high-quality ingredients and you’ve got the recipe for the number one protein powder made entirely from vegan sources.

Cons

This plant-based protein powder from Vega, like Elevate Nutrition’s formula, also has a great balance of macros for those using flexible dieting to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight. Be aware that it contains sugar, especially if you’re counting carbs or trying to maintain a healthy blood sugar level.

Pros

4 flavors available

6g BCAAs per serving

6g glutamine per serving

30g protein per serving

Anti-inflammatory ingredients

Mixes well

Probiotics

Smooth texture

Cons

Contains sugar

One serving/scoop is 41 grams. This is much larger than most protein powders, so it’s easy to go through a tub quickly

Only 20 servings per container

The new formula does not taste great. It has a nasty aftertaste compared to Vega’s older formula

Garden of Life’s organic plant-based protein powder uses stevia as a sweetener. Cranberry seed, garbanzo beans, lentils, and navy beans are some of the sources of this USDA-certified organic protein powder.

Pros

5g glutamine per serving

5.5g BCAAs per serving

30g protein per serving

Good vitamin and mineral profile

Mixes well

Organic

Cons

2 scoops for 1 serving

High in carbs per serving (7g)

Not a great taste

Only two flavor options

Only 19 servings per container

One serving is 44 grams. This is much larger than most protein powders, so it’s easy to go through a tub quickly

This powder is a good choice for people with food allergies and sensitivities. It contains no soy, gluten, or tree nuts, yet has a nutrient profile similar to that of whey powder.

PlantFusion uses a combination of stevia and crystalline fructose to sweeten its plant-based protein powder. According to PlantFusion, the amount of fructose found in a single serving of its plant-based vegan protein powder is equal to that found in an apple.

This powder is made with proteins derived from artichokes, peas, and sprouted brown rice. RawFusion, like PlantFusion, sweetens its plant-based protein powder using a combination of stevia and fructose. The company compares the amino acid profile of its vegan protein powder to that of dairy milk.

Pros

6 flavors to choose from

Good taste

VERY low price

Cons

Contains fructose

Dull taste

Doesn’t mix well

Only 21g of protein per serving

Unimpressive amino profile

Uses bloating stevia as sweetener

When searching for the ideal vegan protein powder for you, look for the type of sweetener used, the right balance of proteins to carbohydrates, and a flavor that you’ll actually enjoy. The costs of each of these protein powders vary, but in general, if you pay for premium ingredients, you’ll get a higher-quality product. Protein powders in the lower-cost range tend to be the ones that are lower in grams of protein per serving.

Gone are the days of spending long hours on the elliptical machine or the treadmill. While extensive aerobic cardiovascular activity certain has its own advantages, such building stamina for running a marathon, the fresh trends in fitness, like tabata-style workouts and other high-intensity interval training (HIIT), focus on short, explosive bursts of exercise. These exercises trigger the use of the fast twitch muscle fibers- those that are used to increase both power and speed. Though some bodies are more prone to utilizing slow twitch muscle fibers (or those used in endurance activities), anyone can, through diligent training, develop their fast twitch fibers.

Types of Fast Twitch Workouts

HIIT workouts like Tabata routines are becoming the most popular type of fast twitch training regimen. These involve using maximal energy for a shorter periods of time. Tabata, for example, is based on completing a high-intensity exercise at full capacity for alternating periods of 20 seconds on and 10 seconds of rest for four minutes before changing to another exercise. Other HIIT workouts follow similar principles of maximizing effort for a short period (less than a minute) followed by a short rest. Though most fast twitch workouts focus on combining cardio and strength, such as push-up jacks, jumping lunges, or burpees, certain extreme strength and muscle building exercises, such as the Olympic lifts ‘clean and snap’ and ‘the snatch’, also activate the fast twitch muscle fibers.

Benefits of Fast Twitch Training

The most obvious benefits of completing fast twitch workouts is the amount of time saved. A seemingly infinite number of studies have proven that fitness goals, whether it be weight loss, muscle definition, or strength, are achievable in significantly less time when done in high-intensity bursts, as opposed to long sessions at a moderate rate. Alternating short sprints and walks for 15 minutes will produce much better results than a 40 minute job, depending on what your fitness goals are.

High-intensity cardio is much more effective at burning fat for several reasons. When the body is working in overdrive, it must work harder to produce the ATP that the muscles need for energy, resulting in more calories burned. Furthermore, working to such a maximal degree means that the body will take much longer to cool down after a workout, causing more calories to be burned long after the sweat stops dripping.

How To Maximize Cardio

In short, do both fast and slow twitch cardio workouts. Fast twitch exercises break down a lot of lean muscle tissue, which is great in the long run but requires more recovery time to rebuild. As such, it is important to mix workouts up, alternating aerobic and anaerobic, high-intensity days. Studies have found that following a high-intensity, muscle-exhausting workout with moderate steady-state cardio (such as jogging or cycling) the next day is the most efficient, as it keeps the blood flowing and allows metabolic waste that accumulated during the fast twitch workout to be flushed out of the body, helping the tissues to recover faster.

]]>Understanding Macronutrientshttp://healthevaluate.com/understanding-macronutrients/
Sat, 24 Feb 2018 09:54:47 +0000http://healthevaluate.com/?p=70Whilst health and fitness are about a lot more than just how much a person weighs, the correlation between maintaining the correct bodyweight and overall wellness is undisputed. Obesity is one of the most urgent medical problems of our time and anybody who has been seriously overweight will know just how inhibiting it is to both internal and external bodily function.

People have been going on diets for centuries, but we are fortunate in that we are increasingly able to understand and appreciate not just the benefits of eating less food, but of eating the right food and in the appropriate quantities and proportions. In particular, we know that although the number of calories we consume in relation to those we burn is the ultimate determining factor in bodyweight, the constitution of the food that we eat is also important in how it shapes our bodies.

Protein, Carbohydrates and Fats

Essentially the food we eat can be divided into three types, which we call macronutrients – protein, carbohydrate and fat. The latter two can be further subdivided, so we have simple (sugar-based) and complex (starch-based) carbohydrates, often referred to as “carbs”, and saturated and unsaturated fats. We need all three, but in a healthy diet we would consume them in certain proportions and when we are striving towards a particular objective we may tweak those proportions with a view to minimising or maximising the consumption of one or other of them.

The traditional way of approaching a diet is through calorie control. By factoring in such things as age, height, gender, natural build, metabolism and – crucially – lifestyle, we can calculate approximately how many calories we each need to maintain bodyweight at its existing level. Then, if we wish to lose (or gain) weight, it is a simple matter of adjusting the number of calories taken each day and monitoring the change as it happens.

The Role of Macronutrition

But our understanding of the role played by each of the macronutrients helps us to condition our bodies as well as simply to change our weight. To develop the point, imagine having become obese not only through over-eating but also as a result of a total absence of exercise from your daily routine. Losing a lot of weight will undoubtedly make you feel better and will make exercise easier as there is less weight to carry around, but even without the excess weight it would be difficult at first to walk any considerable distance because your body will be unused to exercise, and unconditioned for the purpose.

Thus the ideal solution would be not just to reduce bodyweight, but at the same time to undertake exercise to prepare yourself for a more active live. Your muscles will be developed, or reactivated, and in order to do this a diet rich in protein would be advisable as protein is the building block of lean muscle. The higher the proportion of protein consumed the less fats and carbohydrates – especially sugars – would be involved, bearing in mind the cap that you have imposed on your own calorie intake.

Controlling calories, achieving a healthy macronutritional balance and performing physical exercise is the magic combination to unlocking the secret of a successful diet.

]]>The Case for Home Workoutshttp://healthevaluate.com/case-home-workouts/
Wed, 24 Jan 2018 09:47:08 +0000http://healthevaluate.com/?p=64With so much competition in the market it has probably never been cheaper, in real terms, to take out membership of a local gym. The days when it was the exclusive preserve of the relatively wealthy, or an indulgence for which you had to make a huge sacrifice, are long gone. So why would anybody, in this day and age, want to exercise at home instead?

Let’s face it, exercising at home brings challenges of its own way above and beyond those of the workout itself. There is the distraction of the television, the call of the fridge, the telephone which you can be sure will start to ring as soon as you assume the most awkward and unrectifiable position upon the mat. Somebody will knock on the door with a delivery, or else you’ll remember that text or e-mail that just cannot wait to be sent until the set you are doing is completed. Why would you subject yourself to all that?

Distractions at the Gym

Well to begin with there’s the journey. Unless you live on top of a gym there’s a good chance you’ll be jumping into the car to travel down there. Being stuck in traffic or encountering selfish or stupid drivers is unlikely to do much for your stress levels. What frame of mind will you be in when you arrive?

Then when you do roll up the place may be full of strangers, in which case you may feel conspicuous, or conversely you could be surrounded by your friends. Would that not be a bigger distraction than anything that might confront you at home? Are you sure you can complete your workout without drifting into idle conversation about yesterday’s episode of Emmerdale, or the football?

The Obligatory Prima Donna

Also likely to be present at the gym is the inevitable show-off. Whether you choose to emulate him (let’s be honest, it’s usually a him) and risk injury or – worse – humiliation in the process, or whether you decide to endure your sense of inadequacy in silence, your workout suffers. And whilst on the subject of your self-awareness, are you confident that your gym attire is not letting you down before n audience of many? Remember, you can train at home in your undies, or whatever.

Is the equipment they have at the gym the stuff you would have chosen? Generally local gyms tend to operate on a limited budget and are dominated by the kind of machines and provisions which are most popular with the type of user that it attracts. How much use is a line of treadmills spanning three postcodes if you’re trying to sculpt your pecs for the beach?

A Home Gym is Cheap, and it’s Yours

It’s quite amazing what you can do with a pair of dumbbells, a sensible selection of weights and a bit of imagination. You can exercise most body parts, and perform a surprisingly broad range of motions. What’s more, you can do it at hours to suit yourself, and you’ll never have to disrupt your set as you queue to use it. There’s a lot going at the local gym, but sometimes working from home can be the better option.

]]>The Almost-Science of Bulking and Cuttinghttp://healthevaluate.com/lorem-ipsum-dolor-sit-amet-consectetur-adipiscing-elit/
Thu, 21 Dec 2017 13:27:47 +0000http://healthevaluate.com/?p=8Some people hit the gym because they want to burn off a few excess pounds, or to tone up, or even because they want to feel better about themselves after last night’s blow-out. Walk into any of the discount gyms which have proliferated in recent years and you’ll see row upon row of treadmills being relentlessly pounded, and exercise cyclists and steppers galore.

The weights section, by contrast, is usually a little more sparsely populated, but even there a dichotomy is often to be observed. Middle-aged guys in loose-fitting t-shirts will be effortlessly lifting token poundages with no more difficulty than when they lift their pint along the short walk home, whilst the serious trainers sporting vests strategically torn to expose their proudest protrusions will be straining and groaning their way through their punishing routines.

A Scientific Approach to Resistance Training

There is no right or wrong way to use the gym. Anybody who gets from it what they came for has had a result, but the goals differ tremendously from one user to another. For those who adopt a scientific approach to training with weights pumping iron is only one part of the equation. Absorbing the necessary nutrition, at the correct times and in the correct quantities, is every bit as important. This is where the bodybuilder differs from the gym user who trains simply to improve fitness.

As no two bodies are exactly identical, different individuals will usually have different requirements and only through trial and error can a weight trainer gauge precisely which balance of which foods is precisely right for him or her. But there are some general rules which are pretty much universal, not least that the consumption of sufficient amounts of protein is essential for muscle growth whatever may happen in the gym.

Bulking and Cutting in a Nutshell

For those whose aspiration it is to build lean muscle mass, received wisdom has it that a calorific surplus is necessary during the gaining phase. The question of whether it is possible to gain muscle mass and lose weight at the same time has never quite been satisfactorily resolved in spite of all the knowledge we as a species have acquired through the ages, but what is certainly true is that to make the kind of gains that bodybuilders seek it is definitely necessary to increase calories. So more food is consumed, and this they call “bulking”.

The downside of this is that an increase in calories cannot under most circumstances be achieved without some incidental increase in body fat. And so the bodybuilder needs to add another phase to the routine, known as “cutting”, when a calorific deficit is maintained along with a reduction in the weight used on the bar and an increase in the number of repetitions performed, thereby expending more energy and burning more calories.

The Unscientific Side-Effects of the Scientific Approach

Whilst sound as a principle, bulking and cutting can in practice be something of a hit and miss affair. Bulking is designed to increase muscle, but fat is also increased along the way. Cutting is then used to reduce the fat, but inevitably some muscle will be lost as well. Catch 22.

It is surprising too how many otherwise sensible bodybuilders will take the arrival of a bulking phase as a cue to gorge almost anything in the name of science. Hamburgers and doner kebabs contain some protein after all, and there are only so many chicken steaks or tins of tuna that one can eat in a sitting. Bulking and cutting is a logical but imperfect approach based on a philosophy that is almost but not quite scientific. But it works (almost) perfectly.